Simulation of human intelligence processes has demonstrated that it can help farmers, artisans and fisherman to substantially eliminate the gap between the price they get for their produce and the market price, said Amitabh Kant, speaking at the AI Startup Conclave organised by leadingindia.ai initiative at Bennett University.

“AI can help double their income with the same efforts and tools they are using today,” said Kant, who was addressing scholars from prestigious institutions and other startup invitees.

Leadingindia.ai, is an initiative being supported by NVIDIA, Amazon, edX, Newton-Bhabha Fund, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, Brunel University and University College, London.

Founders of over 30 AI startups interacted with academia, government, industry and investors. Special teams from the government of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat attended the event. The bodies plan to extensively collaborate with leadingindia.ai to speed up the adoption of AI in the governance of their respective states.

Kant went on to quote a PwC report that said that AI will drive global GDP gains of $15.7 trillion by 2030, which is even more revolutionary than the advent of internet.

“India should challenge itself to capture the considerable chunk of this opportunity.”

He added that AI can also considerably help reduce the backlog of three crore judicial cases which are pending in different courts of the country. Nearly 80% of these court cases are related to land disputes.

Talking about the AI startup conclave at Bennett University, Kant said that this initiative is the need of the hour to create a collaborative ecosystem with academia, startup and industry.

The wide reach of such initiatives and innovative framework will help India to upgrade its standing in the field of artificial intelligence. After seeing the infrastructure and research facilities powered with computing at Bennett University, Kant said that institutions like Bennett University can be one of the models for the transformations required in higher education right now.

The event was attended by vice chancellors and directors of about 100 institutions across the country including IIT Patna.

Dr R Shevgaonkar, VC, Bennett University, said that there is synergy being created between the industry, startups and academia by the initiative.

“We have acquired a leadership position in the field of AI. This is evident from the fact that hundreds of institutions have consented to become partner to do joint work with the Bennett AI research lab and are looking for mentorship. Bennett is also starting Phd programmes with a model ‘for the industry and by the industry’.”

Dr Deepak Garg, who is the principal architect of this AI Research initiative, said that they intend to create a model for other institutions in terms of undertaking active collaboration with startups and industry.

He said that high-end infrastructure including ‘Amazon Intelligent’ devices lab and NVIDIA Super Computing lab along with world class faculty of Bennett University is attracting a lot of startups and the industry to engage in multiple ways.

Bennett University is backed by the Times of India Group, which publishes ET.

Founded by The Times of India Group, the multi-faculty, research-led Bennett University started operations in August 2016 with the promise of making students ‘life and career ready’. The university offers programmes across engineering, management, media and law.